


if a tree falls in a forest and there's no one around to cry for it the other trees will learn how to.

by incalyscent



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Feelings, Gen, Lowercase, Not Reader Insert, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, i really don't know how to tag this, local poet writes prose, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22540666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incalyscent/pseuds/incalyscent
Summary: each year the earth is born anew but at what cost?  with which breath did persephone grow new flowers?  with what arms do demeter hold her reclaimed daughter?  with what heart do you yearn for that sort of devotion?  how could you, after all these years, still want to be held?
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	if a tree falls in a forest and there's no one around to cry for it the other trees will learn how to.

**Author's Note:**

> what poetry has taught me is that **if a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to cry for it the other trees will learn how to.** in the wake of another splintering they will say, i see you. i too am growing sideways.
> 
> -ashe vernon.

there was a girl you knew, back before the sun had one name. she had skin like fresh tilled earth and a laugh like springtime. she knew things about you that you didn’t even really know about yourself; you are sad, sometimes; lonely, more often; and couldn’t curl your tongue around the name of love for the longest time.

here is how falling worked for you: it hurt, and you were angry, and you never saw your father again. you griped and cursed him and shook your fist at the sky. and as much as it defined you, that was it. you did not have to listen to your father try to win you back; didn’t have to listen to him beg for you not to go. he tossed you out. your box had definition.

to see a mother grieve was a trial. to see her cry and scream at the cusp of autumn stirred something in you you did not want to know you possessed. it hurts at the center of you. it hurts in the middle. these are different gods; you can’t meddle with them. your time has not yet come. persephone isn’t a lover - she laughed at your advancements because she’s a married woman, and even as the words leave her lips you can see what it does to her mother; you see the harvest in her eyes. the reaping and laying to rest.

the people tell this story, like it’s not happening right under their noses. the mothers whisper it to themselves to knit back together the wounds of lost daughters to paltry men. this isn’t a myth, you find out quickly. this is a cautionary tale. each year the earth is born anew but at what cost? with which breath did persephone grow new flowers? with what arms do demeter hold her reclaimed daughter? with what heart do you yearn for that sort of devotion? how could you, after all these years, still want to be held?

there’s nothing sacred about losing a child every fall, demeter tells you once. the only thing sacred about you is the fall. you wonder if there’s some irony about that that you can’t understand right now. just like how you struggle with her grief, you struggle with the fact that someone, somewhere, might grieve you too.

so you stay with her. it’s not about anything - so far the only things that pinned you down were sex and wine - other than a small feeling of obligation. she never turns you away. as soon as the first leaf falls you can feel her pain in the cooling of the earth, smell it in the chill of the air. and you’d sit, often not facing one another, with the warmth of a hearth at your backs. and you’d pretend, quietly, that she mourns you too. you’re not gone. but you want to be mourned.

eventually the story changes. mothers stop laying awake, choking the words to themselves. all stories change. yours did. it still does. demeter stops needing you. and that’s okay. it’s good for her. it’s less good for you. even now, sometimes your heart pulls at the first bite of winter. even now, you feel like you need to till the earth when it gets cold. love is something you let other people hold in their mouth, and now all you have left is the aftertaste. 

**Author's Note:**

> i know we're supposed to be writing sexy things but
> 
> incalyscent-writes.tumblr.com


End file.
